The present invention relates to an image forming system and an image forming method, and specifically relates to an image forming system including a printer controller and an image forming apparatus, which are separately configured relative to each other, and an image forming method employing the abovementioned image forming system.
In recent years, there have been increasingly proliferated in the market various kinds of copiers or multi-functional apparatuses, each provided with a combination of plural functions, such as a copy function, a facsimile function, a printer function, a scanner function, etc., (hereinafter, referred to as an image forming apparatus as a general term for each of them). When the image forming apparatus is employed as the network printer to implement the printing operation, at first, the image forming apparatus receives a print job in the format of the Page Description Language (hereinafter, also referred to as the PDL, for simplicity), and rasterizes the print job (bitmap developing operation) so as to generate multi-value (for instance, 8-bit) image data, and successively, applies screening processing (binarization processing) to the multi-value image data so as to generate binary image data, and then, applies various kinds of image adjustment processing to the binary image data to output the reproduced image onto the paper sheet medium.
In this connection, in such a system that a plurality of image forming apparatuses are coupled to each other through a network, and each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses individually implements the processing for generating the multi-value image data from the print job (hereinafter, referred to as a RIP (Raster Image Processor) processing, for simplicity), the processing for screening the multi-value image data and the processing for applying the image adjustment processing (hereinafter, referred to as an image data processing), each of the plurality of image forming apparatuses should have the functions for implementing the various processing mentioned in the above, and accordingly, the configuration of each of them becomes complicated. To avoid such the complication, in the system as mentioned in the above, a printer controller that is provided with the abovementioned RIP processing function and the screening function is coupled to the network, so that the printer controller can be proxy for implementing the abovementioned processing.
Concretely speaking, as shown in FIG. 13, a conventional image forming system is provided with a printer controller 100 and an image forming apparatus 110, while the printer controller 100 is constituted by a network connecting port 101 to connect the printer controller 100 to the network, a PDL storage section 102 to store the print job in the format of the Page Description Language, received from the client terminal device, a RIP processing section 103 to rasterize the print job so as to generate the multi-value image data, a color conversion section 104 to conduct a color conversion processing at the time of the RIP processing, a compression/expansion processing section 105 to apply the screening processing to the multi-value image data so as to generate binary image data, an image-data and job-ticket storage section 106 to store the binary image data and the job ticket therein, a video interface section 107 to output video signals based on the binary image data, a display section 108, an operating section 109, etc.
On the other hand, the image forming apparatus 110 is constituted by a scanner inputting section 111 to input image data read from an original document by employing a scanner, a print data receiving section 112 to receive the binary image data sent from the printer controller 100, a facsimile data receiving section 113 to receive facsimile data, a MFP (Multi-Functional Peripheral) controlling section 114 to instruct processing of data inputted or received according to the setting items designated from an operating panel 117, an image processing section 115 to conduct the image adjusting operations, an image outputting section 116 to output a reproduced image based on the processed image data onto the paper sheet medium, the operating panel 117 to conduct various kinds of setting operations, etc.
In the abovementioned system configuration, the printer controller 100 receives the print job in the format of the Page Description Language, sent from a client terminal device, and transmits the binary image data and the job ticket, generated by applying the RIP processing and the screening operation to the received print job, to the image forming apparatus 110, so that the image forming apparatus 110 applies the image adjustment processing, etc., to the binary image data, so as to implement the printing operation.
However, according to the above system configuration in which the print job and the binary image data are stored in the printer controller 100, when the reprint of the print job concerned is instructed, the printer controller 100 should again transmit the same binary image data to the image forming apparatus 110. This not only impedes a speedy reprint of the print job concerned, but also causes such a problem that a data communication between the printer controller 100 and the image forming apparatus 110 becomes necessary.
To overcome such the deficiency, Tokkai 2004-86809, Tokkai 2004-86810, Tokkai 2004-86811 and Tokkai 2004-94440 (Japanese Non-Examined Patent Publications) set forth the configuration in which the binary image data are stored in the image forming apparatus side, so that, when the reprint of the print job concerned is instructed, the image forming apparatus can implement the reprint of the concerned print job by utilizing the binary image data stored in the image forming apparatus itself.
According to the configuration set forth by the above Patent Documents, when the reprint of the print job, to be implemented without conducting image data processing, is instructed, it becomes possible to implement the reprint by utilizing the binary image data stored in the image forming apparatus as it is. However, when the reprint of the print job, to be implemented associated with conducting various kinds of image data processing including a color balance adjustment, a sharpness adjustment, a brightness adjustment, a contrast adjustment, etc., is instructed, the implementation of such the image data processing should be requested to the printer controller. Then, according to the instruction, the printer controller should regenerate the binary image data by applying the RIP processing and the screening processing, so as to resend the regenerated binary image data to the image forming apparatus. Accordingly, not only the speedy reprinting operation cannot be implemented, but also the load of the printer controller increases, and the data communication between the printer controller and the image forming apparatus becomes necessary.
Further, although the image forming apparatus, having a printer function and/or a copy function, is originally provided with an image processing section to convert the scan data, acquired by scanning the original document, to the print data for print output use at the time of copying, this hardware resource is not used when the printing operation is implemented on the basis of the binary image data transmitted from the printer controller. This causes such a problem that the ability inherently provided in the image forming apparatus is not effectively utilized (or demonstrated).